Don't let bullies crush your zest

Workplace bullying is often subtle but can destroy a victim's health, confidence and career. Harriet Swain outlines the steps you can take to nip this growing problem in the bud and where to get help. 'He's going to make some comment. Or maybe she will, and then they'll all smirk. You're just waiting for it to happen. But maybe it won't. Or maybe it will and they're just having a joke.' Maybe they're right - you are paranoid.

The problem with being bullied at work is that it is often subtle, says Matt Witheridge, operations manager at the Andrea Adams Trust, which specialises in workplace bullying. "In isolation, many of the events that make up workplace bullying can be trivial - simply a remark here and there," he says. "The important thing about bullying is its persistence."

P. K., who writes a blog on university bullying, says most academics who are bullied do not realise it until their health suffers or they have lost their job or gone through disciplinary procedures. He cites a checklist of indicators that bullying is taking place, which includes the following: rumours and gossip circulate about the target ("Did you hear what she did last week?"); the target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees; there is a collective focus on a critical incident that "shows what kind of man he really is"; there is emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications; the bullies put a high value on secrecy; the target's real or imagined sins are added up to make something that cries for action.

He warns that even if one or more of these things is clearly taking place, institutions will tend to defend the person accused of bullying because he or she is an employee.

But Witheridge says the worst thing you can do is suffer in silence because by the time you realise there really is a problem it is often too late to do anything about it and you may have already suffered considerably. He advises getting as much support and advice as you can, including from organisations such as his, from family members, who are likely to be affected by your problems, and from doctors. As well as being able to treat symptoms of stress, many GPs are becoming increasingly aware of how widespread bullying is, he says.

Roger Kline, head of equality and employment rights at the University and College Union, advises keeping a diary of everything that you regard as contributing to the bullying. You should also keep copies of all letters, e-mails and anything else, such as notes of phone calls, that help establish what is going on.

He also suggests talking to your union rep, ideally the one in your own department because he or she may be aware of a pattern of bullying. "There may be other people currently being bullied, or the individual or individuals bullying you may have a history that the rep knows about but you don't," Kline says. "It may be possible to respond collectively." If there is a conflict of interest with the rep, who may be a friend of the bully, for example, you should talk to your branch or local association secretary.

P. K. says that a good union rep may be able to save your job, but it is unlikely he or she will be able to get redress against the perpetrator of the bullying. "Remember, if it went to disciplinary action your colleagues and people you consider to be your friends will think first of their jobs and won't stick their neck out for you," he warns. Nor is there any specific law in the UK against bullying.

But Kline says it is worth checking your institution's policy on bullying and harassment or dignity at work. While he advises against following any procedure without taking advice, it is useful to know what that procedure should be.

Witheridge says that making a formal complaint becomes much easier in an institution that has a good anti-bullying strategy. The strategy should set out who should deal with the complaint, how long it should take and what exactly bullying is.

Keren Eales, spokesperson for the College and University Support Network, says if the bullying can be classed as verbal or physical abuse you may also want to report it to the police, taking with you any evidence. But a CUSN fact sheet on the topic suggests tackling the problem informally, by speaking to or writing to the person you feel is bullying you or asking someone else to speak to them on your behalf.

Charlotte Rayner, professor of human resource management at Portsmouth Business School, says the informal approach is almost always the best one to take. She says it is important to challenge unacceptable behaviour quickly and gently and not to escalate the situation. If you are not aware of informal ways of handling bullying, such as harassment advisers or mediators, ask your institution because it may prompt them to provide such methods if they don't already have them.

But if it proves impossible to resolve the matter informally, Kline says you need to take advice on formulating a grievance. This will need to set out your concerns and say clearly what you would like done, referring to the bullying and harassment or dignity-at-work policy and reminding management of the agreed timetable.

Alternatively, you could just try to tough it out or move to another area or organisation. P. K. says: "One response is to get out fast before you lose your health and get out when you are not at knives drawn with your manager." If you do decide to stay and fight it out, be prepared for it to take time.

Meanwhile, if you see someone else being bullied, say something, Witheridge urges. "One of the worst things is bystander apathy when people in the same team see what's going on and keep their head down because they don't want to attract similar attention."

Further information:

• Blog aimed at academics who have been bullied: www.bulliedacademics.blogspot.com
• Equality Challenge Unit guide on dignity at work: www.ecu.ac.uk
• Andrea Adams Trust, charity dealing with workplace bullies: www.andreaadamstrust.org
• College and University Support Network: www.cusn.info

By Harriet Swain. Published The Times Higher Education Supplement, 02 March 2007

Increasing workloads stressing out lecturers - UK

Disturbing levels of sleeplessness, anxiety and exhaustion are affecting lecturers in colleges and universities, according to a new union study. Provisional research findings released the week by college and lecturers' union (UCU) reveal high levels of stress as workloads increase. But the study of over 1,000 college staff found only 16 per cent thought their institution was addressing the causes of stress.

Roger Kline, head of equality and employment relations at UCU, said: 'This new research reveals disturbing levels of anxiety and ill-health symptoms amongst the workforce in further and higher education.' He said it was 'clear that one cause is the diminishing control which academics have over their job. Another is the job insecurity amongst lecturers and researchers with part-time and short-term contracts... We need more enlightened management practices which will increase academics' autonomy and reduce excessive administration.' [Nice words Roger - how will our union show innovation and leadership on this challenge?]

The study findings were released this week at a conference organised with the College and University Support Network (CUSN). CUSN chief executive Patrick Nash said: 'Thirty one per cent of calls from lecturers to our helpline in the last six months have been from people who were feeling anxious, stressed or depressed. Lecturers told us the main factors contributing to their high stress levels were money worries, harassment, problems with managers, difficulties with colleagues, workload, issues to do with performance and pay, and legal issues.'

A full analysis of the research, conducted for UCU and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), will be published in the new year.

From: http://www.workstress.net - November 2006

Mobbing

It is not uncommon to see a group of blackbirds or swallows chasing a hawk or eagle, or a group of songbirds fluttering and calling around a perched owl. Such "mobbing" behavior is probably the most frequently observed overt antipredator strategy. Nevertheless, the exact purpose of such noisy group demonstrations remains a matter of some debate.

Mobbing tends to occur most intensely on the breeding grounds. For instance, in April a tape recording of the cries of an Eastern Screech-Owl brought Prothonotary Warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and other small songbirds swarming in from their newly established territories in the swamps of South Carolina. A week later the same tape had no discernible effect on warblers moving northward along a ridge in Nashville. Presumably the migrating warblers had less reason to mob, perhaps because they would be leaving the vicinity of the predator anyway. Mobbing may thus function to divert the predator from areas where there are fledglings, or simply to confuse and annoy the predator, in the hope of getting it to move away.

This "move-along" hypothesis, first put forth by E. Curio, a specialist in the biology of predation from Ruhr University in Germany, is supported by the research of ornithologist Douglas Shedd of Randolph-Macon Women's College. Shedd has shown that Black-capped Chickadees will respond to predators in fall and winter, even in January with the temperature 25 degrees below zero. The chickadees, which remain in residence all year long, still find it profitable to mob in winter. Migratory robins, in contrast, sometimes approached a stuffed screech-owl and tape combination outside the breeding season, but never mobbed.

Careful experiments have shown that birds can learn from each other which predators to mob (indeed, one bird in an experiment was taught by another to "mob" a many-colored plastic bottle, although the mobbing was halfhearted). Therefore one function of mobbing may be educational -- to teach young birds the identity of the enemy. Another may be to alert other birds to the presence of the predator, either getting them to join in the mobbing or protecting them, since a predator is unlikely to be able to sneak up on an alert victim. The original mobber may benefit directly by the predator being moved along, or indirectly if the protected birds are its kin.

Much is lacking in our understanding of mobbing. It is not clear why predators don't simply turn on their tormentors and snatch up one or two of the mobbing birds. If they did, presumably mobbing would quickly disappear; that it persists suggests that surprise is an essential element in raptor hunting.

By Paul R. Ehrlich, David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye

The Burgher and the Villein: rethinking the problem of bullying

'Discussion of the problem of bullying too often relies on ‘common sense’ notions drawn from three assumptions which could be categorised as myths. This paper attempts to analyse the problem in terms of interactions, drawing on concepts from Simmel and others, in order to reassess the issues and possibilities for taking appropriate action to prevent bullying.

...Yet academic investigation of bullying has been limited. Until recently, the topic has had little interest for educationists or psychologists, the two academic disciplines that one might turn to for enlightenment. Academics with no experience of bullying are unlikely to perceive a need to investigate the problem; those who might have been victims of bullying are perhaps too humiliated or worn down by the experience to be able to apply their minds to it as a generic phenomenon; while those who might have been perpetrators of bullying are unlikely to see it as a problem worthy of academic investigation.

As a result, the analysis of bullying has often been left to superficial explanation and ‘common sense’ presumption, largely drawing on three major misperceptions from the application of inappropriate psychological theory.

Three myths about bullying

1. The first common misperception is that all bullies are ‘psychopaths’. This may perhaps provide some slight comfort and reassurance for victims, bewildered at the unjustified and out-of-proportion attacks they have suffered: their sense of injustice may be somewhat mollified by the use of ‘psychopath’ as a derogatory term to describe their oppressor(s). But bullying is so commonplace that there would be no hope for society if all bullies were truly psychopaths in the strict sense. It is too easy to credit them with a psychiatric condition which suggests that it is not their fault.
   
   
2. The second misperception is that bullies have low self-esteem. This again is counter-intuitive (cf Emler): bullies certainly play with and undermine the selfesteem of their victims/targets, but frequently display arrogance and self-importance. As with the term ‘psychopath’, it may be reassuring for the victims to believe that those who bully them are psychiatrically deficient, but the principal problem with bullies is not primarily a psychological one.
   
   
3. The third misperception is that victims invite the bullying because of their own psychological weaknesses. This is the most absurd and least acceptable of all the myths surrounding bullying, and may be explained as an excuse for inaction by those who ought to be concerned, but have no personal experience of the phenomenon and lack empathy with those who do. The fact that this ‘common sense’ fallacy was proposed in a serious academic conference by the British Psychological Association (Guardian 7 Jan 2000) suggests that psychology in its current state has no answer to the problem of bullying...'
   

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By Ken J. Peel.

Ken John Peel is the pseudonym, for legal reasons, of a lecturer with over 30 years HE experience, who can be contacted c/o: bullying-study-group@lineone.net

Published in: New Era in Education, Volume 83, Number 2, August 2002. Complete paper available online at: www.neweraineducation.co.uk/PDFs/Bullying.pdf

Six Degrees of Collaboration

'...No empire can exist without collaborators... Collaborators are the lifeblood of empire everywhere...

More important is the second degree of collaborators, the professionals. They are the ones who are just doing a job. They, not the Quislings, actually run their colonized countries. The professional collaborators tend to be apolitical. They figure that, whether their homeland is occupied by foreign tyrants or domestic ones, there is a job to be done and someone has to do it, ostensibly for the benefit of their own people.

Among the professional collaborators are the bureaucrats. Unwittingly, the bureaucrats are not just “doing their jobs”. They are doing the work of the occupier, for without their assistance there would be no “normalcy” and the chafe of occupation would excite the people to resistance.

The “professionals” include the soldiers and police. The soldier class of collaborators, generally young people in their teens and twenties, are indoctrinated into a cohesive, supportive, uniform society when society all around them seems to be disintegrating. They are trained to be “professionals”, which means that they are trained to obey “orders” and to kill other human beings on command. This type of “professional” collaborator is mature enough to be trained and too immature to resist indoctrination...

But it is not the second degree of collaborators who are essential to empire.

More important than them is the third degree of collaborators, the “score-settlers”...

The “score-settler” serves the new empire as an eager collaborator because he was typically maltreated by the newly conquered people. The occupier merely uses the “score-settler” for its own short-term purposes, however, and it is usually only a matter of time before the empire, having achieved domination, proves that he who it elevates to power it can just as easily cast aside...

However, it is not the “score-settler” who is most necessary to the empire.

More important is the fourth degree of collaborator, the opportunists, the profiteers. These people have no qualms about collaborating with their imperial conqueror because they are simply out to make money. They are like the Wall Street investors who see profit in other people's misery, the loan shark who exacts interest income from the poor, the profiteer who lines his pocket by providing necessities at exorbitant prices when all around him is chaos...

The opportunist is an important collaborator, but not the most important to the empire.

The fifth degree of collaboration is the gladiator. The gladiator is the bright, smart one whose services are for sale to the highest bidder. In America, they are the corporate lawyers who cravenly serve the Fortune Five Hundred; the government attorneys who inexcusably generate legal memorandums that excuse torture and secret detentions and abrogation of the Geneva Conventions...

That distinction belongs to the sixth degree of collaboration, the merely compliant.

Us. All of us.

In reality, the empire's foundation rests squarely on its own collaborators, on its own citizens' shoulders. We work, we consume and circulate money, we drive, we watch television, we read periodicals, we go about our day to day activities seemingly unaware that our every little action, socially and economically, directly and indirectly tends to support the infrastructure of the empire. Millions upon millions of us, the merely compliant, are the cells of the empire's body. Without our activities, it all simply grinds to a halt...

We can, incrementally, stop collaborating in the negative sense of the word: stop complying; reduce or withdraw our participation. We can start to collaborate in the positive sense of collaboration among equals seeking a common good.

Our complicity, our collaboration, is the ultimate strength of the empire, and its ultimate weakness...'

From: Alternative Press Review
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Collaborators come in many forms. The common denominator is that they are aware of workplace bullying but keep their mouths shut, and thus implicitly or explicitly condone the actions of bullies.

• It can be your trusted academic colleagues who for years drunk bears with you, played cricket with you and had BBQs with your family, played with your children but now are distancing themselves.

• It can be senior academics afraid that if they speak out and break out from groupthink they will miss out on the next round of promotions, so they join the lynch mob.
  
  
• It can be governors who know or suspect that senior academic staff are engaged in bullying of junior staff but do not confront those who appointed them, and do not insist on the fair and transparent application of regulations - this is while they are active members of the church.
  
  
• It can be the union rep who does not question the entrenched culture of workplace bullying, and from his/her protected position often sleeps in the same bed with the managers.
  
  
• It can be your neighbour who asks you to close the door and move on in life; is prepared to justify and explain what happened to you.
  
  
• It can be the local media that is afraid to question a local public institution for fear that it will loose advertising and burn bridges.

A collaborator is anybody who - for whatever reason - fails to speak out and speak up while watching the victim of workplace bullying suffer mentally and professionally. We all know what happened to the Vichy collaborators... All collaborators are eventually exposed. They are party to the crime. Collaborators await for your future - you will hung your heads in shame.

Interesting links & some golden oldies

• High stress levels in colleges and universities caused by management culture - UK
• University bullying shock [Shock and horror, how can these things happen in universities...]
• Lifting the veil - changes to the "without prejudice" doctrine
• Academics For Academic Freedom - AFAF
• How many silent wintesses
  
• Factors impairing ability to deal with bullying
• Urgent: Defend Freedom of Information Act
  
• The cost to the employer
• Coping, surviving, fighting back
• The serial bully
• The role of HR and Management
• Dismissal as an academic boomerang
• Workplace bullying and the insignificance of (academic) trade unions
• Open letter to Peter Jones, Roger Kline and Sully Hunt
  
• Expired disciplinary actions...
• Staff are silenced by fear of reprisals
• Obituary: Tim Field
• Checklist of mobbing indicators [in Academia]
• Authorship, ghost-science, access to data and control of the pharmaceutical scientific literature: Who stands behind the word?
• The crisis of conscience... Academic Survival
• A real story - the real story
  
• Too timid to make a stand for [academic] freedom
• What do academic colleagues ever do about workplace bullying?
• Backfire basics - The keys to backfire
• The Mobs of Academe - Excerpts from an online discussion
• Academic Freedom of Expression
• Dealing with bullies [in Academia]
• Are the claiming you are emotionally unstable?
• How do your Governors compare?
• So they never gave you a [good] reference... Well, make sure you hit back hard!
• The Bullying Boss [in Academia]
• Financial impact on [educational] organisations
• The international symbol for bullies...
• Unpacking research on bullying in Higher Education, Petra Boynton
• The Richardson dismissal as an academic boomerang, Brian Martin
• Workplace bullying - interim findings of a study in further and higher education in Wales, Duncan Lewis
• Workplace Mobbing in Academe, Kenneth Westhues
• Bullying at work: a review of the literature, Johanna Beswick, Joanne Gore, David Palferman
• Mediocrity and the 'no change' principle, a recipe for mobbing, Jocelynne Scutt
• First Employment Appeal Tribunal Decisions on Statutory Grievance Procedure, Pinsent Masons
• Bullying at work / a general note on the Law, emplaw.co.uk

To anyone who is bullied

The following message was recently posted on our online forum:

"I ask anyone who has experienced academic bullying to take a step back, remove oneself emotionally from the situation, and look at the situation as if one were a complete outsider. The truth is that academic bullying can cause death, suicide and other types of violence. I have seen brokenhearted and disappointed scholars die of cancer within ten years of a disappointment. That is why we who have been bullied or mistreated have to see the situation for what it is and not allow ourselves to be manipulated or instigated by it. We have to be clear about the kind of values and lives we want for ourselves, whether or not this will ultimately involve remaining in academia. We have to be clear that the people who mistreat us want us to be ruined and that we have to see them for who they are and build an emotional stone wall between ourselves and them."

Posted by: lseltzer@alumni.caltech.edu

Ten Easy Ways to Avoid Employment Tribunals - UK

...For those employers who have yet to put proper systems in place, the following basic 10 Point advice is essential reading:

Procedures & Systems – Many employers, even major outfits, fail to have contracts, statements of particulars of employment, handbooks and basic policies so when a problem happens, management find themselves flailing around, wondering what to do. Employment Tribunals will automatically mark down any organisation, which has not demonstrated a willingness to prepare a fair working environment. These documents will help managers to react in an appropriate way, for example, through application of grievance and equal opportunities procedures.

Effective Communication – Tribunal cases normally begin with a simple human omission; a junior manager’s failure to report information to personnel has lead to a sense of frustration either about or from a worker. Staff should be trained on their rights and encouraged to come forward and line managers, in particular, need to look out for problems. Regular, short meetings with line managers should keep you in the loop so that you can act. The worst employment case will involve an employee who suffers in silence. Encourage a culture of openness and confidence that issues will be taken seriously.

Proportionality – most legal rights come down to this: is there a problem? and what is a proportionate way of dealing with it? Or, more simply, ‘serious issues should be treated seriously’. If a worker reports a substantial health problem, then you should spend more time on it. A scribbled occupational health nurse’s note on a worker’s suspected serious disability will not be well received by an Employment Tribunal when an expert report is required. Similarly, if sacking an employee for gross misconduct, a botched disciplinary on 24 hours’ notice is unlikely to impress.

A Paper Trail – many employers keep inadequate records. How can you, for example, prove that Bloggsy was warned about his lateness on “too many occasions to mention?” In a World of email communication and itemised phone bills, an Employment Tribunal is simply not going to believe you unless you have a piece of paper proving your point. For legal purposes, if you can’t prove a fact, you might as well abandon it. Keep relevant emails on the worker’s file.

Consistency - if the entire spectrum of employment law could be reduced to one word, it would be “consistency”. An employer, who treats all staff in the same way and, importantly, explains any differences in treatment such as pay or promotion, could avoid most claims. Discrimination, of all types, and unfairness, both have at their root some failure to deal consistently; either by comparison with other internal situations or by objective standards of fairness. Tribunals will draw adverse inferences where there is no clear reason for inconsistent treatment of a worker.

Escalation - The most common criticisms levelled at employers in the Tribunal are: “where are the warnings?”… and… “How did this employee know there was a problem?” Managers have a tendency to avoid raising issues until it is too late for the employee to change. As one CEO recently put it: “ we only warn people when we are sacking them”. Records of regular and clear commentary, especially if fair (in terms of timing and content) will do wonders for an employer’s case.

Timing - One of the big problems with HR management is that you never quite know what is round the corner. That employee who is repeatedly late might suddenly develop a disability, or the poor performer may announce her pregnancy. If there is no record of the problem before the change in the status quo, a Tribunal is likely to believe the employee’s suggestion that you are victimising her for asserting her rights. When there is a problem, act quickly to prevent being wrong footed by events and let the employee know there is a free-standing issue which needs to be addressed. Employment law should not give staff greater rights simply because they have a problem; you should not have to retain an incompetent employee simply because she is pregnant or disabled although, obviously, care will have to be taken to make sure that no risks to health and safety are caused by being over-zealous when she is medically vulnerable.

Training - A Chairman at an Employment Tribunal will usually ask the employer what steps were taken to train staff on appropriate standards of behaviour. It can often be a complete defence for an employer in a discrimination case to show that it instructed staff on standards of equal opportunities leaving the guilty employee as the person to foot the bill for compensation. Training of staff is, without doubt, the best way to avoid Employment Tribunal claims.

Investigations - When a problem comes to light, it should be investigated and records kept. One of the biggest ‘crimes’ is simply to sweep an issue under the carpet, so, when an employee complains of sexual harassment in the pub after work, a response such as: “sorry, events out of work are not our concern”, is unlikely to work. An investigation might establish that you cannot reach a conclusion due to lack of evidence or that the issue is genuinely a personal matter but failure to do anything could be discrimination on its own account. Employers often make the mistake that events outside of work are always irrelevant; this may not be so, if it is relevant to the workplace. An employee who is abused at the pub is unlikely to be able to work for the perpetrator the next day.

Alarm words - certain words should automatically lead you to act and, at the very least, investigate: harassment, victimisation, bullying, pregnancy, stress and whistle blowing are but a few. As part of the training of managers at all levels, focus should be directed at what these words mean in terms of the law and compensation. Whilst your organisation wrestles with difficult employment law concepts, these simple cultural and practical changes could be all you need to keep out of trouble ... the cost of doing nothing at all will be far greater than giving a little thought to the basics.

From: Employersworld.co.uk, by Gordon Turner
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Wise words but the issue remains that there is no monitoring, there is no policing and universities (as well as other employers) would rather wear down the victim in a prolonged and protracted legal case than admit that they did not follow the right procedures - even if this is going to cost lots of tax money. There is also no compulsion on (academic) managers to be informed of the above and apply it.

Equal opportunities and diversity for staff in Higher Education - UK

'...There is clear evidence that inequality exists within the Higher Education labour market – clear evidence of discrimination that advantages white, middle-aged men (for example, sources Kingsmill 2002, Wilson 2003, NATFE 2003, AUT 2001a, b). While less is known about equal opportunities for administrative, technical and support staff, the pay differentials reflect forms of labour market segregation and segmentation which favour white male workers...'

Full report available from: Statistics for equal opportunities in Higher Education, May 2005

We have reasons to believe that little has changed since May 2005. We have recent evidence that researchers from ethnic backgrounds are excluded from research which they instigated and pioneered in the first place. Promotions often bypass ethnic staff. Ethnic staff are perceived as easy targets by administration and management.

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